winning clients back

In 2017 we had a stellar year at Sircle Media and I am very proud of all that we accomplished. We grew our staff, expanded and diversified our offerings and brought on a number of new and higher profile clients. By all measures it was solid.

What I am perhaps most proud of, are the clients who returned to Sircle after leaving us prior. In the agency space, there is a lot of churn and turnover on retainers and contracts. Sometimes you lose business because you messed up and deserve to, but more often than not it can be for silly reasons outside of your control. Losing clients sucks, especially from a competitive and passionate person like me. Unfortunately, this is what I signed up for and it is a way of life I have had to become accustomed to.

Our number one reason for losing clients is a new Marketing Director or decision maker of some sort transitioning in and pushing us out for no rhyme or reason. The analogy I always use is that it is comparable to a new President who wants to come in, flip the table over and put all new people in their cabinet seats. A new leader wants to make moves to earn their keep and often doesn’t want to inherit a legacy agency that they didn’t select. We would argue that if you have a great Secretary of Defense in place, you shouldn’t just fire them, just to fire them. They just might represent the stability you need to make that new role a success. Unfortunately, they don’t even want to hear that.

Regardless of their reasoning, when we do get the notice from a client that they want to leave our agency, rather than getting angry, frustrated or even petty we go the opposite direction. I teach my team to deploy empathy first and foremost and realize that the other party is doing it, for what they think is a good reason for their business. We immediately pivot to customer service and hand-holding mode. We look to set them up to win without us and shower them with love and attention during our winddown month. Every former client would attest that we were rock stars in our darkest hour and that is a distinctly different posture than they are accustomed to.

I then try to keep in touch and root for them from the sidelines, in order to stay on their radar and to let them know that while we are no longer dating, they are still a former love that we care about very much. In a rough and sometimes unforgiving world, they appreciate that more than you would think. We invested a lot of time and energy together and developed a loyalty to their brand, that doesn’t just disappear because they’ve stopped paying us.

When your team handles adversity like professionals and does everything with integrity and class, you create a long-term impression that has lasting effects. Life is a marathon and if you treat it that way and stick around long enough, good things tend to happen. So to all of those returning customers in 2017, I say thank you. To all of the other ones out there, it is never too late to come back. You know where to find us. #Squad4lyfe